Baking dishes for pies are as old as pies themselves, dating back at least to Roman times. More recently, disposable, lightweight pie pans made from thin aluminum foil have been developed for baking and/or serving pies, principally to support the convenience food market for pre-made pies. According to the Aluminum Foil Container Manufacturers Association, the first aluminum foil pie pan was developed by George Buff, Jr. of New Jersey and entered the market in 1948.
Buff's foil pan was perhaps the first commercially successful food container made from aluminum foil. Its success led to a great proliferation of many other types of foil containers for food, in a great variety of shapes and designs. Meanwhile, the basic design of the foil pie pan itself has little changed since its introduction. Circular in shape, most pie pans are eight to twelve inches in diameter and one to two inches deep. A crinkled, outwardly sloping side wall surrounds the circular bottom. An annular ring serving as crust support ledge runs around the upper edge of the side wall. A distal portion of the ring may be curled into a generally cylindrical shape forming a circular rim around the pan to protect the consumer from any exposed sharp edges of the foil.
This simple configuration has stood the test of time, but lacks certain conveniences that may be of value to consumers. For example, it can be difficult to remove the first slice of pie from the pan without damaging the appearance of the slice, rendering it unsuitable for presentation to guests or sale to customers. It would be desirable to resolve this problem while preserving the advantages of low cost and simplicity afforded by conventional foil pie pans. Solutions for these and other limitations of prior art pie pans, methods for manufacturing pie pans, and methods for using pie pans, are presented in the specification that follows.